In the art and science of warfare, one of the most important pieces of equipment is the tank, which is a heavy armored fighting vehicle carrying guns and typically moving on a continuous articulated metal track. The number of tanks deployed by an army and the quantity of heavy shells the tanks can fire is often the decisive factor in the outcome of a military engagement.
Tank technology has mostly focused on the armor plate strength of the tank, and the size and capacity of the shells it can fire. In World War II, the German Panzer tank was far superior to the armor plating and firepower of the American tank. A German Panzer tank could sit and pick off numerous allied light tanks: One after the other. The primary reason that America was able to defeat German Panzers, is because Germany could only produce about 1,300 of these tanks during the war, while America was able to mass produce about 50,000 tanks.
Even though the Panzer was a superior tank, the Russian T-34 tank proved to be superior to Germany's tanks. The T-34 is credited with forcing the Germans to adopt new, heavier designs such as the Panther and Tiger I. Hitler wanted a much larger armored tank with massive firepower. Hitler commissioned Ferdinand Porsche from the car company to develop this massive tank for him, which is a super-heavy tank completed in late 1944, so close to the end of the war, that only two of them had been built.
Hitler's massive tank was commonly called the Maus (Mouse) and was designed with a hull front armor that was 220 millimeters (8.7 in) thick, sides and rear of the hull that were up to 190 millimeters (7.5 in) thick. The Maus turret armor was even thicker. The turret front was up to 220 millimeters (8.7 in) and the sides and rear 200 millimeters (7.9 in). The mantlet was 250 millimeters (9.8 in), and combined with the turret armor behind, the protection level at that section was even higher. Many considered that the Maus design was based on “tunnel vision technology” because of its focus on armor plate strength, barrel size and shell capacity. The planned weight of the Maus with all that armor was 188 tons. This compared to Germany's earlier Tiger II heavy tank, first used in combat during the Normandy campaign on 11 Jul. 1944, weighing 68 tons and to the U.S. M3 tank weighing in at about 16 tons.